Life is Strange co-creator and Don’t Nod creative director Michel Koch has taken to X, “The Everything App” to call for civility from Life is Strange fans upset with the series’ current developer, Deck Nine. Though Deck Nine has been developing new Life is Strange games for some time, the recently released Double Exposure is the first to revisit the characters from the 2015 original, resulting in some controversy.
“Since the release of [Life is Strange: Double Exposure] I’ve seen a lot of tension and hateful messages against Deck Nine devs,” Koch wrote on Twitter. “I didn’t play the game yet, and I have no idea where they are taking the story. But what I know is that nothing justifies hating on people for how they wrote their game!”
Looking at the Life is Strange subreddit, the backlash Koch refers to mostly seems to stem from how Double Exposure continues the original Life is Strange’s story, particularly the relationship between its two main characters. The 2015 original told the story of Max Caulfield and Chloe Price as they investigate a string of murders tied to a supernatural storm, and the young women’s friendship and potential romantic relationship formed a key element of that story. The game ends with either Chloe’s untimely death, or her and Max kindling a relationship. With the exception of the prequel game Before the Storm, the Life is Strange games released since have told unrelated stories with new characters.
In Double Exposure, Max returns as the protagonist while Chloe does not. Players can choose which ending to have as “canon” in their playthrough, with Chloe and Max implied to have broken up offscreen between the two games if Chloe survived the events of Life is Strange 1. While certainly a realistic development—a teenage romance not lasting forever—there’s a bit of a sour note to a high profile, influential queer love story in gaming having such a perfunctory ending. It almost would have been preferable if Double Exposure removed the element of choice and exclusively proceeded from the ending where Chloe dies.
And Koch doesn’t shy away from criticizing the work, just the intensity and aggression fans bring to it: “You can be disappointed, you can want other narratives for those characters you love, or different stories,” he wrote on Twitter. “Ultimately, creation is hard and very subjective, and if Double Exposure’s story does not please you, it does not erase what you imagined.”
“From what I read, I think we would not have written things the same way,” Koch wrote in response to one commenter. “But I felt the same with the comics and Before the Storm and I kind of accepted it. I’m pretty sure when I play the full game I won’t recognize my characters but that’s also inevitable with different writers.”
And whatever backlash to Double Exposure Koch has observed, its Steam reviews are still doing pretty well: 81% “Very Positive” of 765 players at the time of writing.